


Behind A Closed Door

by klaviergavout



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, VERY GAY friendship though, anyways these boys are wonderful they deserve happiness and i love them, but its platonic all the way through, this is the sort of thing that would precede rich/jake yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 10:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10965369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klaviergavout/pseuds/klaviergavout
Summary: Rich doesn't show up to school for a week after his hospital discharge. Not only that, but he refuses to answer anyone's texts or calls. Jake wants to find out why.





	Behind A Closed Door

It was the day all of Middle Borough High had been waiting for. After being discharged from hospital, Rich had been allowed a few days to get re-adjusted at home before having to return to school- and disregarding the people who seemed to constantly be living under a rock, _everyone_ knew about the fire. (The news alone had swept the school faster than the janitors.) In an ideal world, Rich would waltz into school, tell everyone how he was feeling, and finally let them all know why he had started the fire in the first place. That was the one detail nobody seemed to know- or, perhaps, the one detail everyone had decided to leave out. No one was sure, which was why they all waited with baited breath that morning for Richard Goranski to arrive.

He didn't show up that day.

Or the next day, or the one after that. He didn't answer any of his text messages, didn't call anyone, didn't _dare_ to step one foot inside the building. After a week, people gave up waiting. There were more important things to worry about than a mystery they hadn't been able to solve for weeks on end, than a guy most of them hardly knew.

Jake didn't stop waiting. Every day he'd show up to class, make himself comfy in his usual seat, and wait for his best friend to sit down next to him. Every time the door would open, he'd look up hopefully, and be denied every time. It was _torture._ Only by the end of the week did he realise something could be wrong; skiving class for a few days was to be expected, but nobody, not even the pettiest girls in their grade, left a text message on seen for that long.

Eventually, Jake found himself standing outside the door to Rich's room, having taken matters into his own hands. It was such a usual occurrence that none of their parents had minded it.

"Rich? Dude?" He knocked a few times. "Are you in there?"

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he scrambled to pick it up.

_go away_

"You can't just keep ignoring me forever."

Another buzz.  
  
_ive been ignoring everyone, whats your point_

"Well, for starters, everyone misses you. Second of all, you're gonna get in even more trouble if you stop coming to school."

It took a while before the next buzz. _my mom told the school that it hurts too much for me to walk, they cant really argue with that. also they dont miss me. they just want to know abt the fire fml_

Jake opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it when he felt the phone go off again, and again, and again.

_thats all it is isnt it? the stupid fire. they just want to know why i did it_

_well im not telling them_

_you can go back to school and tell all of them to piss right off_

_yknow jake its kinda hard to tell somebody that you bought smth fucked up on the internet to make people like you and for two years everything was fine until you realised it was just using you all this time and tried to get it out and when nobody at that party gave a fuck about all the shit it had done to you you just decide, fuck it, im going to burn everything down and the squip with me_

Jake heard a sharp intake of breath from behind the door and his heart plummeted at least twenty feet.

"Listen." He sighed lightly, trying his best to get over the weirdness of a one-way conversation, and the horrible feeling of helplessness that he couldn't just burst into the room and make everything better. "You don't have to tell anyone anything that you don't want to tell them. You can flat-out lie, agree with one of the several thousand rumours, ignore the people who ask about it, that sort of thing. People are gonna move on eventually, it's just not every day that some kid commits arson."

That earned Jake a clearly repressed laugh from behind the door, and he carried on with a lighter feeling in his chest.

"And hey, if anyone gives you any sort of trouble, they'll have to deal with me."

There was a pause, for a while, and for a few minutes unbearable silence.

Then:

_thanks jake_

_but theres another reason why i dont want to go back_

_its also the reason ive been avoiding you_

"Right."

_jake if i tell you this will you promise not to hate me_

_i just_

_i didnt expect you coming here today i just thought youd leave me alone but now that youre here i dont want to ignore you anymore_

_im just so scared to tell you_

Richard Goranski began to cry, and the whole world shattered with him.

"You don't have to be scared," said Jake, feeling his own throat begin to close in on him. "I'll always be your friend, Rich. I mean, you burnt down my house and I'm here right now. I know some of the things you did when you had a squip might not be some of the things you'd do now, and that you might be a little different, but I don't care. Nothing's gonna change, Rich. I promise."

Jake heard a loud sniff before the next texts came through.

_okay_

_i'm gonna open the door now_

Footsteps, a deep breath, and the door swung open.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Jake and Rich stared at each other, both silent and unsure.

"So what did you want to tell me?"

Rich smiled awkwardly. "Oh yeah. Well, it's my voice. I, uh, kinda have a lisp."

Silence.

"That's it?"

"That's-- yeah, that's it." 

"You really think that you having a lisp would bother me? C'mon, dude."

"It bothered everyone else!" Rich crossed his arms adamantly, giving Jake a look. "That's why I got the squip in the first place. I had zero friends because of my stupid voice."

"Yeah, in freshman year! People just don't have the time to waste on bullying people anymore. There's too many other things to worry about, like football and girls and Snapchat and finals." Jake rested his hands on Rich's shoulders with a genuine smile. "And hey, if the whole play incident taught us anything, it's that we all have problems with ourselves. 'Least we all suffer together."

It didn't take long for Rich to rush forward and tackle Jake in a hug, sending them both to the floor despite his height. Laughing happily, Jake ruffled Rich's hair and shifted himself slightly so that he was more comfortable lying on the floor with half of his best friend's weight on him.

"Sorry for burning down your house."

"Sorry for breaking into _your_ house."

"Shut up, Mom let you in."

"I know."

They laughed again, basking in each other's company for the first time in days.

"Rich?"

"Mmhm?"

"You can't 'kinda' have a lisp."

"Yeah." He grinned. "Guess I can't. Also, uh, I'm bi too? I think I always knew deep down, but my squip just decided to be homophobic too, yknow, as a fun little bonus."

Jake gave him a lazy smile. "It's cool, man. It's whatever."

"It's not just whatever!"

When the two of them had stopped laughing for the third time in succession, Rich frowned curiously, smoothing back his hair.

"So what's this 'play incident'?"

"Let's just say that I have a _lot_ to tell you."

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so I might have forgot before I added the tackle hug that Jake broke both his legs trying to escape the fire, and Rich probably broke his legs too. Whoops.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! I love BMC and these boys so much.


End file.
